My best suggestion is to find an uber-cheap video card that looks to be supported and swap that in.  Amazon’s cheapest is $4.99 (which doesn’t say anything about whether it might be supported or not).  I don’t know how things will react if your video card is integrated into your motherboard.

While installing Ubuntu is way down there on my to do list, we’ve had linux of one kind or another at home for years.  What you’ve just experienced is pretty par for the course in terms of getting things running, so if this has worn you out already, you may want to reconsider.

Your next peripheral challenge will probably be your printer.

You could also go to https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ and order CDs for free.  I did.  Worked out great.  I actually had a working system up and running inside of about an hour with no hardware support issues.  (Bearing in mind that I built this box with Linux in mind in the first place.)

Is this to replace windows xp? I am so, so out of touch with all this computer stuff now lol. I don’t even have xp yet! Dang I need to get with it. I am probably lucky that I know what firefox is!
Sorry I didn’t call yesterday. E decided to go into work (big surprise) and the day got away from me!

My patience would be far less taxed if it hadn’t taken 5 hours to download Ubuntu both times. The rest of it hasn’t been too bad, I guess. Just fussy. I’m giving some thought to partitioning the hard drive anyway. I renamed the ROM drives last night without exploding anything, so I’m ready to take the next step. But, of course, XP doesn’t provide any tools for partitioning, so I’ll have to find a tool that does it.

I’ve been thinking whether it would be a horrible thing if I had to reinstall Windows and decided it’s not. I haven’t been using this machine that long and there’s really nothing on it that couldn’t be reinstalled.

I’d like to have the choice of using either Ubuntu or XP, depending on what I’m doing. So, partitioning is the best option.

I like my video card, so I don’t want to replace it. But I think the Ubuntu alternate will work fine. My first major challenge, however, will probably be getting the wireless network to work. Then the printer challenge....

This’ll be something I fiddle with in dribs and drabs until it either works or I give up. Machines made with Windows in mind have a few additional challenges to overcome.

Yes, J, Ubuntu is an operating system that has many fewer of the security problems and general headaches that Windows provides. And, from what I’ve heard of other people who are using it, it’s a friendly environment to begin learning Linux while using it.